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e-Dossier No. 32 – Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty

By A. Ross Johnson

This is a collection of declassified U.S. Government (USG) documents pertaining to Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) – Radios which were overseen and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1971, funded there after by open Congressional appropriation, and merged in 1976 as RFE/RL, Inc. The documents were used as primary sources for the book, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond (Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press, 2011). Documents with reference numbers preceded by “MORI” or “C” were obtained (many with redactions) by mandatory declassification review requests to CIA under the provisions of Executive Orders 13526 and 12958.

A brief description of each document, with reference to its citation or reference in the book when applicable, is provided.

Additional declassified USG documents on RFE and RL are included in various volumes of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States series and the CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room and the CIA CREST data base at the National Archives.

Declassified USG documents tell only a part of the Radios’ history. Other important primary sources include the RFE/RL’s corporate and broadcast archives deposited at the Hoover Institution, the RFE/RL research archives in custody of the Open Society Archives, the Robert F. Kelley Papers at Georgetown University Library Special Collections Division (containing important RL archives), and the Political Archives of the German Foreign Office.

A. Ross Johnson is a Woodrow Wilson Center Senior Scholar and author of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty; the CIA Years and Beyond

These documents trace the establishment and initial operation of RFE and RL as public-private partnerships among the Department of State, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC, fully integrated into CIA in 1952), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and influential private American citizens. RFE was the major operating division of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), later renamed the Free Europe Committee (FEC). RL, initially called Radio Liberation, was the major operating division of the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism (AMCOMLIB), later renamed the Radio Liberty Committee (RLC). For convenience, these annotations use throughout the terms “Radio Free Europe” and its parent “Free Europe Committee” and “Radio Liberty” and its parent “American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism.”

April 30, 1948 – State Department Polish Planning director George Kennan outlines, in a Policy Planning Staff document for the NSC, the idea of a public committee, working closely with the USG, to sponsor various émigré activities. [Redacted final draft of a memorandum dated May 4, 1948, and published with additional redactions as document 269, FRUS, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment.]

August 26, 1948 – CIA, State Department, Defense Department, and OPC officials discuss establishing a philanthropic organization to sponsor radio broadcasts and other activities of East European émigrés.

February 21, 1949 – George Kennan, State Department official Llewellyn E. Thompson, and OPC director Frank Wisner agree that influential private citizens organizing the FEC require approval for the project from Secretary of State Dean Acheson and thereafter responsibility for dealing with East European émigré leaders will shift from State to the FEC.

April 19, 1949 – Frank Wisner and FEC president DeWitt C. Poole brief FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover on the FEC project to secure his concurrence and assure him of coordination with the FBI on émigré contacts.

October 4, 1949 – This seminal document reaffirms the mission of the FEC and outlines the respective authorities and responsibilities of OPC, as agent for the USG, and the FEC, “autonomous … with due regard for the source of its funds.”

April 26, 1950 – Robert F. Kelley expands the recommendation of his May 3, 1949 memorandum [Document 6] that OPC encourage the “existing striving of the Russian émigrés to create a central unifying organization” that would organize broadcast to the Soviet Union and be supported through a FEC-like committee in the United States. [A longer document of the same date, “Survey of Russian Emigration,” is available in the Kelley Papers.]

May 5, 1950 – OPC provides the FEC with State Department policy guidance dated April 26, 1950, calling for a range of diplomatic and information initiatives, including use of émigrés, but cautioning that broadcasts “should not promise imminent liberation or encourage active revolt.” [The quoted phrase was added to the initial guidance dated April 11 and published in FRUS, 1950, IV, 14-17.)

October 19, 1950 – State Department Policy Planning official Robert Joyce laments to Frank Wisner disarray among the national councils and suggests redoubled efforts to unify them. Check copy and redactions.

November 22, 1950 – Frank Wisner reviews RFE broadcasting after 5 months and notes a shift from use of exile leaders “of questionable current value” to “timely news items and commentary.” He foreshadows expansion of broadcast hours and shift of program production to West Germany.

August 21, 1951 – Frank Wisner reviews the origins of the Soviet émigré project. He considers AMCOMLIB to be a cover organization without independent authority, notes the difficulty of uniting Soviet émigré groups, yet assumes that an émigré “political center” can organize publishing and broadcasting for the Soviet Union.

November 20, 1951 – Assistant Secretary of State Edward Barrett reviews FEC plans with Allen Dulles and other officials. The State Department vetoes startup of RFE Baltic broadcasting on grounds that it would duplicate VOA broadcasts and insists that the Crusade for Freedom be toned down. Dulles subsequently rejects the latter point in a handwritten annotation. [Published in full (with one minor redaction) as document 94, FRUS, The Intelligence Community.]

March 15, 1952 – CIA, State Department, and AMCOMLIB officials agree to expand AMCOMLIB activities, share funding with RFE from the Crusade for Freedom, and delay RL broadcasts until a sponsoring Russian Émigré Political Center is formed.

March 28, 1952 – An OPC memorandum formulates principles guiding RL broadcasting, which should be organized by a Russian Political Center, not duplicate VOA broadcasts, and aim at destroying the Soviet government’s monopoly of information.

April 24, 1952 – Frank Wisner in a memorandum to Robert Joyce dissents from State Department criticism that exile participation on RFE is minimal and rejects State’s proposal that East European National Councils should themselves organize broadcasts.

May 29, 1952 – State Department Russia expert Francis B. Stevens comments on a draft policy guidance for RL broadcasts. [Evidently an initial response to the OPC request in Document 28, which is dated June 2 but was drafted on May 26.]

June 2, 1952 – Frank Wisner in a memorandum to Robert Joyce requests State Department views on policy guidance for RL broadcasts, to be organized by the Russian émigré Political Center and adhering to a list of 21 prescriptions and prohibitions.

July 3, 1952 – Responding to Frank Wisner’s request [Document 28], the State Department Office of East European Affairs provides Robert Joyce with its views of proposed RL broadcasts, stressing a policy of “self determination for the nationalities when conditions are such as to permit them freely to give expression to their will” [a formulation which would be known as non-predeterminism].

July 16, 1952 – The Psychological Strategy Board issues a restrained revision of the Princeton Statement adopted at a May 1952 meeting at Princeton on psychological operations [available in the Hoover Archives] convened at the initiative of FEC President C.D. Jackson.

January 22, 1953 – A CIA memorandum formulates guidelines for RL broadcasts to be conducted by a Coordinating Center of Soviet exiles. [A nearly identical unredacted RL policy document, dated February 11, 1953, is available in the Hoover Archives and is cited in Ch1 n85].

May 18, 1953 – Dana Durand, chief of the CIA/DDP SR Division, now responsible for the RL project, concludes that efforts to unify the Russian emigration have become counterproductive, that RL broadcasting should be separated from émigré politics, and that AMCOMLIB president Leslie Stevens is too wedded to the old approach to continue in office.

September 30, 1953 – The Operations Coordinating Board forwards CIA’s acceptance of Jackson Committee recommendations that the FEC and AMCOMLIB concentrate on radio broadcasting to the Soviet bloc as distinct from émigré support projects.

November 16, 1953 – C.D. Jackson, now assistant to President Eisenhower, urges CIA director Allen Dulles to make contingency plans to exploit future unrest in the Communist world during a perceived “Winter of Discontent.”

April 12, 1954 – CIA official Thomas Braden, now responsible for RL, criticizes AMCOMLIB president Stevens’ enclosed mission statement as overemphasizing émigré politics and neglecting communication with the people of the Soviet Union.

June 10, 1954 – CIA official Thomas Braden assures the State Department that RFE broadcasts which took sides in Czechoslovak factory council elections have ended. [The cited FEC document is available in the Hoover Archives as FEC teletype NYC 29, June 8, 1954.]

June 16, 1954 – State Department official Lampton Berry conveys to Thomas Braden reservations about FEC Special Policy Guidance No. 19 [available in the Hoover Archives] that emphasized weakened Soviet control in Eastern Europe.

July 22, 1954 – CIA official Richard Bissell criticizes the April 21, 1954, AMCOMLIB mission statement [Document 42], now endorsed by the State Department, as postulating far reaching goals without identifying the means necessary to achieve them.

These documents trace the U.S. Government’s perceptions of unrest in Eastern Europe in 1956, its policy guidance to RFE and RL at the time, its subsequent reviews of RFE’s controversial broadcasts to Hungary in October-November 1956, and its reappraisal of the need for broadcasts to Poland after the October 1956 thaw.

March 13, 1956 – West German Ambassador Heinz Krekeler shares his government’s concerns about FEC balloon operations with Deputy Undersecretary of State Robert Murphy and FEC President Whitney Shepardson.

June 15, 1956 – CIA official Cord Meyer, chief of the International Organizations Division (IOD), notes that the Budapest Legation’s appraisal [Document 51 and Budapest Dispatch 427, May 23, 1956] is more positive than media commentary at the time [Cyrus Sulzberger’s May 14 commentary in The New York Times; letter to the editor response by FEC official Louis Galantier, June 2, 1956.]

October 25, 1956 – CIA/IOD guidance for RFE at the outset of the Hungarian Revolution calls for extensive use of President Eisenhower’s September 23 statement on maintaining the spirit of freedom and for caution in prejudging Imre Nagy.

October 30, 1956 – Radio Free Russia, the voice of the Russian émigré organization NTS, begins Hungarian-language broadcasts and reports the readiness of the “Association of Former Hungarian Servicemen” to assist the Hungarian insurgents.

November 2, 1956 – RFE Director Conerey Egan in New York telephones RFE Deputy Director Richard Condon in Munich to direct that RFE should report Hungarian developments and insurgent demands but not take a position for or against individual leaders or political parties.

December 3, 1956 – CIA/IOD routing slips raise questions about an attached FEC draft dated November 12 on the FEC’s role in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution and note that the FEC [in New York] did not forward to RFE Munich certain CIA guidances on broadcast policy.

November 14, 1956 – Cord Meyer forwards to Allen Dulles a State Department assessment dated November 13, 1956, of RFE Hungarian and Polish broadcasts. The assessment was requested by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and was prepared by State Department official L. Randolph Higgs, responsible for coordinating RFE issues with CIA, and Meyer, who objected to an initial State Department draft.

November 16, 1956 – The State Department approves with “comments and recommendations” a November 15, 1956, CIA/IOD draft of revised guidelines for the FEC with handwritten revisions [presumably by a State official].

November 29, 1956 – Cord Meyer forwards to Allen Dulles, with extensive comment, deputy undersecretary of state Robert Murphy’s review, dated November 26, 1956, of selected RFE Hungarian program scripts. Meyer also forwards a CIA/IOD memorandum on RFE policy and program review procedures.

November 26, 1956 – Cord Meyer informs Allen Dulles that RFE Hungarian broadcasts did not incite revolution or promise outside military intervention. He encloses his memorandum of November 16, 1956, on monitoring and program control of RFE and RL.

November 23, 1956 – Cord Meyer forwards to Frank Wisner a copy of “Interim Guidance for RFE” dated November 20 [a final revision of Document 68] that was transmitted to the FEC on November 21. [FEC copy available in the Hoover Archives.]

December 20, 1956 – The Bonn Embassy conveys to Washington the results of the German review of tapes of RFE broadcasts to Hungry from October 23 to November 10. [The original German Government review could not be located in the German Foreign Office Archives.]

January 14, 1957 – Report of the CIA Librarian, who with other CIA Hungarian speakers reviewed tapes of RFE Hungarian broadcasts from October 24 to November 4, 1956 and provided responses to seven questions posed by IOD. He provided personal comments in a separate memorandum dated January 10.

February 11, 1957 – CIA and State Department officials plan an interagency working group including USIA officials to reappraise U.S. international broadcasting [later named the Committee on Radio Broadcasting Policy, CRBP].

March 5, 1957 – Robert Murphy, Allen Dulles, and other officials review on March 2 State Department recommendations contained in a memorandum dated January 10 [document not released] and agree that the charter of the CRBP include drafting RFE country policy guidances and considering reductions in RFE broadcasts.

May 1, 1957 – Cord Meyer forwards to Richard Helms his account of Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen’s views of RL provided to a CRBP meeting on April 24. Minutes of the meeting are provided in a State Department memorandum dated April 25.

These documents trace controversies about RFE Polish and RL Russian broadcasts, turmoil in the Radios’ managements, continued State Department involvement in setting policy guidelines, and successive reviews of RFE and RL during the Johnson Administration.

January 5, 1959 – Foreign Service Officer David Mark, reporting in Moscow Dispatch No. 375, suggests changes in U.S. policy to embrace reduction of “pressure-generating activities” on Eastern Europe, including RFE. Ambassador Llwellyn E. Thompson dissents but suggests that RFE broadcasts might be halted in exchange for an end to Soviet jamming [of VOA and other Western broadcasts].

February 19, 1959 – Ambassador Jacob Beam forwards to Washington in Warsaw Embassy Dispatch no. 301 his critique of RFE Polish broadcasts as incompatible with U.S. policy goals in Poland. In an attached undated and incomplete memorandum, IOD dissents from the State Department criticism.

April 28, 1959 – Cord Meyer records sharply different views of the utility of RFE Polish broadcasts aired by State and CIA officials in a meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Foy Kohler on April 23, 1959.

April 24, 1960 – Dulles drafts a suggestion for establishing “Freedom Radios” that would merge RFE and RL, expand broadcasts to other parts of the world, and become truly private enterprises free of CIA involvement.

December, 1960 – The President’s Committee on Information Activities Abroad, chaired by Mansfield Sprague, concludes that RFE and RL are slow to adapt to changes in the Soviet orbit and resulting shifts in U.S. policy. [Also available in the Richard Helms Collection released by CIA in 2008.]

July 14, 1961 – NSAM 63 directs the State Department to provide foreign policy guidance to all broadcasters, including RFE and RL, and authorizes the USIA Director to preempt time on RFE and RL in a national emergency.

November 27, 1961 – An interagency group convened by the Bureau of the Budget concludes that RFE and RL funding should continue at current levels, that continuous evaluation of programs is needed, and that European co- funding should be explored.

April 28, 1966 – A panel commissioned by the White House and comprised of Zbigniew Brzezinski, William E. Griffith, John S. Hays, and Richard S. Salant recommends continuation of RFE and RL as covertly funded objective news services, along with VOA and RIAS, discontinuation of public solicitation of private financial donations to RFE, and (Hays dissenting) establishing a Radio Free China.

September 8, 1966 – CIA proposes adoption of the findings of the Panel on U.S. Government Broadcasting to the Communist Bloc [Document 134] pertaining to RFE and RL but urges continued solicitation of private corporate donations by the RFE Fund [successor to the Crusade for Freedom].

These documents trace the measures adopted to fund the Radios after disclosure of CIA involvement, to counter reservations of the West German government, and to manage the transition from covert to overt sponsorship and funding of RFE and RL.

September 8, 1967 – An inter-agency Radio Study Group reviews options for RFE and RL in the wake of publicity about CIA funding. It recommends (the Bureau of the Budget representative dissenting) that CIA funding continue but that U.S. government support be acknowledged.

December 19, 1967 – Principals of the Departments of State and Defense and CIA agree on December 15, 1967 on “surge funding” of RFE and RL through June 1969 and on continued corporate (but not private) contributions to the RFE Fund. [Published as document 197, FRUS, 1964-1968, X]

August 22, 1968 – Consulted by Cord Meyer, Deputy Undersecretary of State Charles Bohlen approves RFE’s cautious approach to covering the Soviet invasion and also agrees to use of RL transmitters to reach Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia.

February 20, 1969 – Henry Kissinger informs President Nixon of the 303 Committee’s determination that RFE and RL are not “private voluntary organizations” and not subject to the policy recommendations of the Katzenbach Committee ban on covert federal funding.

June 16, 1971 – In the absence of Congressional action on funding RFE and RL after June 30, 1971, Richard Helms seeks advice from Office of Management and Budget Director George Shultz on “what the Administration desires that the Central Intelligence Agency do about the funding and the management of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, effective 1 July 1971.” [Published as document 55, FRUS, 1969-76, XXIX]

June 24, 1971 – Acting CIA Director Cushman advises AMCOMLIB President Sargeant to prepare for liquidation in the absence of Congressional funding action. [A similar letter was sent to the FEC. At the last minute, the Congress approved temporary funding for RFE and RL from the USIA budget].

September 19, 1972 – A CIA chronology records the end of all financial support to RFE and RL on June 30, 1971, and the end of all supervision and other involvement on March 30, 1972. [Thereafter, funding and oversight were temporarily the responsibility of the Department of State and thereafter until 1995 the responsibility of a new federal body, the Board for International Broadcasting, and subsequently the responsibility of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.]